This Type of Fat May Protect Your Health

August 28, 2019

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 100 million adults in the United States have been diagnosed with diabetes or prediabetes. Since diabetes increases the risk of numerous serious diseases and illnesses — including strokes, heart attacks, neuropathy, and blindness — the current number of people suffering from diabetes or prediabetes constitutes a major health threat.

Numerous research efforts to combat this disease have been completed or are currently underway. One such effort, led by Dr. Scott Summers, the department chair of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, investigated a new method for combating this disease.

In 2013 Dr. Summers and his colleagues investigated the causal relationship between obesity and metabolic disease. In the course of their analysis, they noted the importance role played by ceramides, a type of fat, in this process. This observation led the scientists to investigate the effect of deactivating the enzyme DES1, since DES1 reduces levels of ceramide in the body. The results of their study were published in the journal Science.

The conclusions of their study were remarkable. Deactivating DES1 protected mice on a high-fat diet from developing insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. An unexpected bonus was that it also protected the mice against fatty liver disease, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

“We’re thinking of ceramides as the next cholesterol,” said co-senior study author Prof. Scott A. Summers, department chair of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, highlighting the importance of the finding.

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